Game Over: The Enigma's Escape

The Escape Room

It's a nice summer evening. I'm on my way to meet my friends Daniel, Jessica and Noah. We decided to meet at Noah's place this time.  We have been friends since our childhood. We have always shared everything. We have promised that we won't keep any secrets from each other and always be together whenever trouble occurs. We have always loved to play together, especially board games we would never say no to board games. It's always been our kind of fun even though everyone feels it is outdated we have always loved it.
By the time I reached Noah's place, Daniel and Jessica had already come over and everyone started discussing what game to play this time. We were unable to decide which game to play and suddenly there was a knock on the door. I went to see the door while others tried to decide which game to play. When I opened the door, a man stood at the doorstep, his expression unreadable, I wasn't sure who he was so I asked him "Hi sir, how can I help you?". The man stood like that with no expression watching me for a few moments and when he finally replied "I'm looking for Mr. Robbins has received a parcel" he stretched out his hand showing the delivery parcel to my hand. I took it but the man was still looking at me longer than he intended so I asked him "anything else?". He once again started looking at me until finally, he started to leave.
I stood there until the man left my sight and finally, I went inside closing the door behind me. The delivery was for Noah, but he doesn't know what's inside the parcel. When we opened the parcel, we found a board game that said "Escape Room" We were all thrilled to finally see a new board game to entertain us and keep us happy.
We decided to play the game. We found the instruction book which had a creepy note that said "I'm a realm where entrance binds, Escape's locked until the game unwinds". It's a riddle which means "you can't leave until the game ends".
It sounded exciting so we decided to start the game immediately. It is a puzzle game, where once a person tosses the dice and ends up in a block, they have to solve the riddle to continue the game. Everyone chose their coins, and suddenly everything changed. Suddenly my vision became blurry and when I regained consciousness, I was inside the game with my friends, we didn't understand what was going on, and we were all scared, we tried to scream but no one heard us, We wanted to leave the game but we didn't understand what to do and suddenly, a voice came out of nowhere "Welcome to the Escape Room" It's a high-pitched lady's voice which sounded scary. "To begin the game one of you should toss the dice that are available on the right side of this room. Once you toss the dice you will be given a riddle which should be solved within 1 minute or else you will be punished".
"We want to leave we don't want to play this game, let us go" Jessica shouted. "You can't leave this game until you solve all the riddles and puzzles of this game". The voice said. We were so scared that we didn't want to play but suddenly, "Now, let's start playing before you start getting killed" the voice said and the earth started shaking creating a situation of earthquake and the rocks started coming towards us. We started running here and there trying to save ourselves from getting killed. "Please stop doing this and leave us" Daniel started to shout, scared and wanting to leave so desperately. Nothing changed, instead the earthquake started to increase, and everyone started to get hurt because of it. "The only way to escape this is to finish the game" I shouted. "Everyone try to get towards the dice and start playing, that's the only way we can stop this" I shouted. "That's right everyone try to get the dice, whoever reaches it first, toss it" Noah replied. We all started to get close towards the right-end corner, where the dice were located. Jessica reached it first and tossed the dice. The dice gave the number 3. The earthquake has stopped, which is a relief.
Suddenly the echo came again "Let's start the game with a riddle, you have one minute to clear this riddle. What can travel around the world while staying in a corner?". Now that the game has started, we have to get all the riddles and puzzles right to make everything normal. The game started with a simple riddle and Jessica was able to answer the riddle immediately "The answer is A stamp". "That's the right answer, you can move 3 blocks forward" the echo replied. Jessica moved three blocks forward. Daniel decides to go next, he tosses the dice giving out the number 6. The Echo spoke again "Wonderful start with a six, let's start the game with a crossword puzzle. You have to make 6 words from the given letters within one minute to qualify for this game". A table came in front of Daniel containing a crossword puzzle with very few letters. "Let's do this!" Daniel said and started solving the crossword puzzle. Even though the letters provided are very few, Daniel was able to finish it within the prescribed time. "Congratulations! You have finished the crossword puzzle within the time. Please move 6 blocks forward". The voice echoed. Noah took the next turn and ended up tossing a 2. "Good start, now let's clear a 3x3 soduko to move forward," the echo said. Noah is a champion when it comes to soduko. He cleared within no time. "Very well! Now move 2 blocks forward" the voice echoed. Finally! It's my turn, I have tossed the dice and ended up getting a 5. "Well... Well... Well... Someone looks excited to get a riddle for herself" the voice echoed. I'm one of those people who hates riddles and cannot solve one. Everyone looked anxious towards me. "What has keys but can't open locks?" The riddle has arrived. I don't have any clue what it is. Jessica tried to help me, but a red alarm warning started blaring "One cannot help others with the answers". "Think Rachael it is very simple you can do it," Jessica told me. "We have done this riddle so many times, think you know the answer, Rachael," Daniel said. "It's what we take and is used when we walk" Noah gave me a hint. I started thinking. "You have 15 seconds left" the warning blared. "Think Rachael you know the answer " Daniel shouted. I started thinking again about the hint that Noah had given. "You have 5 seconds left" the voice echoed. "Footsteps" I had answered in the very last second. The alarm blaring has stopped. "It's the right answer. Now move 5 blocks forward" the voice echoed. We took a sigh of relief and moved 5 blocks forward.
We continued playing the game solving all the puzzles and riddles. Luckily I didn't get any riddles after the first one. We have finally reached the end of the game. We were so happy thinking that the game had finally ended and we could go back to our normal lives. "Congratulations! You have successfully come to the end of this game. To escape the game move into the second room. There you can find a way to go back to normal" the voice echoed. We were so excited and happy to finally go back and rush towards the second room.
When we entered the second door, we didn't get back to normal, instead, we got ourselves stuck in the middle of a kind of maze. We didn't understand what was going on until the voice echoed again "Welcome to the second round of the game. To finish this round, find the endpoint of the maze". It took us some time to process everything, as per the instructions we just needed to reach the endpoint of the game to get back to normal. Now suddenly everything makes sense, we need to finish all the rounds that are there in this game to end this game.
"Guys let's try to reach the endpoint of this maze together as soon as possible so that we can escape from this round," I said. "But we just finished the game right why didn't everything change back to normal" Daniel asked. "I guess we need to clear all the rounds that are there to get out of this game," I said. "But how many rounds are there in this game?" Jessica asked. "We don't know that one, but we need to clear every round to get back to normal," I said. "Let's clear this maze together so that at least we can clear this round and move forward" Noah suggested. We all agreed and started to find the endpoint of the maze.
It was a very long maze with so many boundaries and intersections, that it took us longer than expected to reach the endpoint. By the time we reached the endpoint, everyone had become so tired. "Congratulations! You have successfully cleared the second round. Now go to the third room to end the game" the voice echoed.
As we moved into the next door, we found 4 doors at the other end of the room. We don't understand what's going to happen in this round. We were waiting for the voice to give us instructions to finish this round. And finally, the voice echoed "Welcome to the third and final round of this game. To clear this game you need to choose one door wisely." The doors are closed so we don't know which door will lead to what. As we moved forward towards doors, we were able to listen to faint sounds coming out of those doors. We went towards each door individually. A low growling can be heard, hinting at a lurking predator in the first door. As we moved towards the second door, A faint hissing sound emanated from behind, indicating a venomous creature behind the door. Eerie whispers echoed from the third door, resembling a restless spirit behind the door. As we moved towards the last and final door, an ominous silence surrounded this door, giving no clue to what lies beyond. We tried to move closer towards the door but we couldn't even hear a faint sound out of the final door. "Let's choose this door. I'm sure it will be the safest door" Jessica suggested. "Don't you feel it's creepy? It is the only door filled with silence, don't you think that there might be something more dangerous behind the door than any other door like a room filled with chemicals or something?" Noah taught. He is right, even though it is silent, we don't know what's behind that door. If we choose that there is a chance that we might lose the game.
We remained silent for some time, unable to understand which door to choose. "Let's think about the consequences of opening each door, that's the only way, we can find the right door" I suggested. "Well, everyone knows that the first three doors are dangerous, but we still don't know what's behind the final door, so I suggest not choosing that door. The door is a trap to make us choose the wrong door" Daniel supported. "You are right, the final door is a trap. So let's choose from the other three doors" I said. "I think the growls from the first door may be hungry wolves," Jessica said. "It is obvious that there are snakes behind the second door," Noah said. "And some kind of restless spirits behind the third door," I said. "Every door looks dangerous now that we are trying to figure out what's behind each door!" Jessica exclaimed. "You are right, but we need to choose one of these doors to escape" I suggested. "Maybe it's better to take the third door," Daniel said. "You are right, it's just the echoes of spirits, they can't harm us" Noah supported. "But what if it's the wrong door?" Jessica questioned. "But we should take the risk, that's the only way to find out whether it is right or not" I said. "Let's take the risk and choose the third door. Let's see what will happen" Daniel said. We all agreed to choose the third door.
When we opened the door, the echoes started to grow louder. It's scary but still, we made our way inside. The echoes tried to distract us, but we still went through it together. When we finally reached the end, a door was there indicating an open sign, as we opened the door and entered it, we finally made it back to Noah's room, back to normal.
We were so happy that we were able to escape from that creepy game. Noah immediately gathered that game and threw it out. It's one of the scariest experiences that we have faced so far. It took us some time to recover from that trauma. It taught us a lesson not to accept anything that a stranger gives. We don't know what that may result in. We couldn't play any board games for a few months because it always made us think of that incident. We finally gave up on board games and started enjoying playing video games together. Everything is back to normal. And we are very happy playing video games together.

To be continued...